Research On Vibe Magazine

Vibe magazine is a very well known Urban magazine for those who really enjoy hip hop and R&B music. I have chosen to research this particular magazine as it is the magazine which will inspire me to create my music magazine. The genre and style of magazine is what I want my magazine to look like therefore I had to research how and why VIBE magazine is successful and how its elements from the front cover, contents and double page spread can contribute to this. 

Vibe is a music and entertainment magazine founded by producer Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and hip-hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. After shutting down production in Summer 2009, Vibe was purchased by the private equity investment fund InterMedia Partners and is now issued quarterly with double covers, with a larger online presence, aided by the Vibe LifeStyle Network, a group of entertainment/music websites under the Vibe brand. The magazine's target demographic is predominantly young, urban followers of hip-hop culture. The audience that I want my music magazine to attract is also predominantly young therefore Vibe magazine is a good use of inspiration for my work.

Vibe has a circulation of approximately 800,000 which is quite a high circulation meaning that the magazine is very successful. As well as magazines, Vibe has expanded its brand by publishing books on hip-hop culture such as "VX: Ten Years of Vibe Photography and also otherbooks published under the Vibe banner cover featuring the history of hip-hop, the women of hip-hop, and rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. who are very well known Urban artists. Additionally, the magazine published a spin-off publication, Vibe Vixen from 2004 to 2007. Aimed at Vibe's female multicultural demographic, Vibe Vixen included features on beauty, fashion, and female entertainers.

As an audience of Vibe magazine I had to look at various examples of Vibe magazine front covers specifically because its the first thing you would see, and asked myself why the cover appeals to me. I realised that my attraction to the front cover was the cover lines, main image and style. The cover lines quote specific stories or news that would immediately grasp a young persons attention. It shows that the content of my magazine is most likely to be interesting and engage readers to carry on reading. Also the main image and the use of costumes and body posture are very eye catching and as the main image of Vibe magazine is always someone within the R&B/Hip Hop industry which is an immediate call for a young buyers attention. The way in which the image reflects and contributes to the house style of the magazine is very effective, for example what the model is wearing and how the style and costume contributes to the colour scheme and style of the magazine.

When looking at various contents pages of vibe magazine, I noticed that they didn't consist of many columns and had a rather large image featured on the page. Personally I thought that the contents page was quite empty and could consist of more, but as people within urban subcultures are associated with simplicity I came to the conclusion that maybe this was used to portray this, but of course I may be wrong. Although I felt there wasn't enough on the contents page I did like the way that certain elements were extracted from the front cover such as the Vibe Logo to keep the house style flowing. This showed me that in order for my magazine to be successful and appealing to the audience the consistency of house style is very important.

Here I have done somthing different. Below displays some secondary research I found from a source that someone else has created.

Vibe double page spread analysis

View more documents from DaniellaSolomon1

Original Photo's

Below are the images used throughout my media product before they were edited.

| Learn About Mixbook Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the process of constructing my project, I used a variety of different technologies in order to help me successfully construct my project. The main equipment I have used during this process is a Canon 1000d Camera, Adobe Photoshop CS5 extended, Adobe Indesign CS5 extended, Blogger along with the other facilities that the Internet has to offer. Microsoft word was also used to a degree when drafting out the contents for my double page spread.

The first piece of Software that I was taught during this course was Adobe Photoshop CS4, an image manipulation program created by Adobe. The Software consists of a number of tools which were very useful in constructing my magazine as it allowed me to change the brightness, saturation and contrast of images, resize them, apply effects such as shadows and glows to images and text and many other things in which photoshop has to offer. 

Using photoshop allowed me to do all the thing i wanted to do making it easier to put my ideas into practise and develop them on my front cover and contents page. If I was to use a different program for creating all three pages, I wouldn't have been able to create the visual effects that i wanted to be shown on each page in the way that Photoshop allows me too for example, programmes such as Paint would be inconvenient as there are limited options and tools to choose from and its lack of technology within the programme would have prevented my magazine from looking professional therefore Adobe Photoshop is the more sensible choice of Software for creating a detailed piece of work such as a music magazine.

My double page spread constructed on a slightly different programme called Adobe InDesign which is a Software that can be used to create magazine articles and other forms of print media. As we were not introduced to InDesign during the process of our preliminary task construction I had to get to grips with how the programme really worked and how this could benefit my double page spread. InDesign consists of many tools just like Photoshop but also allows you to 'Text Wrap' which allows you import an image or a separate piece of text into a written article allowing the text to wrap around the images instead of making the text cover the image or be hidden by the image.This programme was the most appropriate programme to use for the double page spread as it allowed you to display columns in which text could be put in to help structure the page like other music magazine double page spreads published in the music magazines we currently see today. 

This was the camera that I used to take the pictures that I will later use for my Front Page, Contents Page and Double Page Spread, and this shirt pocket-sized camera has many useful features that I used to make sure my images where taken in the best possible quality. Arguably the most useful feature was the automatic scene-selector that has been built into the camera, allowing the camera to select which scene mode (out of 18 different settings) would best suit the mise-en-scene, shot composition and the mode of address present in my scene. Without this feature at my disposal my photoshoot would have taken a considerably longer time to get the required shots and I doubt my photos would have been in the same quality as they are now. This particular camera also has a 5x Optical Zoom, 4 means of reducing the blur of an image, an Electronic Vibration Reduction and even a Skin Softening feature to reduce the appearance of uneven skin tonnes. All of these features together helped to ensure that my pictures were as high quality as possible, and without these tools at my disposal my pictures would have appeared grainy, blurry and unsuitable for use in my Media Product.

Lastly, we have Blogger. Blogger is an online tool which gave me the ability to record all of my work online in the form of a blog, without the need for folders with print-outs of my work and having to work on paper which would make loosing work very easy. Blogger has many tools and features that I have used to make my blog easy to navigate for not only myself but who ever visits my blog such as the ability to assign labels to a post which allows me to create a list of links that made my blog much easier to navigate and contributed to presenting my work in a more professional order. Without this, I would have had to print of all of my work and place it in a folder with the use of dividers. This would have been very time consuming therefore I believe blogger was the most convenient and affective way to present my work.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you address/attract your audience? on Prezi

Double Page Spread Article

Urban interviews El Manyera, one of our ‘new comers’ in the music industry and asks a few questions getting into the depths of what the real El Manyera is all about.
She pops her head through the door shyly giving a wide grin stretched from ear to ear, her louboutin heels aggressively clapping the surface of the floor boards; she walks across the room to shake my hand, a stern shake it was her nerves disappeared, she was ready to start!

Right, So let’s cut to the chase. Everyone’s dying to hear about the album you are yet to release, tell us about it!
I really shouldn’t be giving anything away, but since you asked nicely, fuck it! Basically, my new album is called ‘I Still Grow’ which will be released February 6th; I believe that’s next Monday? Erm, well I aint sure what day it is but yeah, 6th Feb. All the songs on the album are pretty much written by me but with a little help from friends and family. I’ve collaborated with Jessie J on one of the tracks featured on the album that funny enough I used to go Brits School with back in my younger years. I refer to the album as a ‘time line’. It reflects the life I have lived so far and what I expect to come out of it. It’s pretty much a summary of my life and the different aspects encountered within it.

Ok, so what would you consider being your favourite track on the album and why?
Well, making music and selling albums is the life I’ve chosen and worked hard for, so if I’m gonna do it, then I gotta do it well, ya get me? I just wanted to put my point across really. Erm, my favourite track on the album would be ‘Stronger’ because it explains the break up between me and my ex-boyfriend which was a very tough time for me. I just decided to write the song to get my feelings out and I found writing a song about it was the best way to express how I really felt; I thought that maybe it’s not just me going through the situation and that others can relate to the song. The song is designed to reinforce overcoming a tough situation that may break you and growing emotionally stronger as a person.

Interesting. Now, moving on, let’s get some insight into the real life of El Manyera.
Oh-no, go on... 

Tell us a little more about yourself, what your ambitions are, you as a ‘normal’ person, nights out, anything like that. What are you really like?
There’s really not much to tell. Ok maybe there is I’m not that boring. Erm, well to start off with, I’m very family orientated. I love spending time with my family and I always try to fly them out with me when I’m going certain places. I’ve got my first upcoming tour and I know I’m not gonna be able to fly them out with me. I’m gonna miss them so much. I’ve got a younger brother who loves music and wants to do what I do. He’s doesn’t sing but he’s very good at MC and rapping, he’s only 17 so he’s got way to go, but I’d like to get him out into the open world.  

You seem to have a tendency to drift off subject and talk about others rather than yourself! Come on tell us!
Ha-ha, bloody hell calm down! Stop drilling me. I’m not use to really talking about myself. I find it difficult.

Ok, let’s break it down. So you say you’re very family orientated. So when you’re not around your family, what do you do?
The usual thing any young woman would do.

What’s that?
Shopping, getting nails done, pampering, a few spa treatments and saunas here and there and of course partying and going to the club!

Going to the club aye?
Yeah well there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun is there? Before all this I use to go clubbing all the time, was probably more misbehaved but still. Being an artist can be very hard and sometimes you just need time to do something else and take your mind off things. It’s not often I get a chance to have a really good time with my friends, so doing all these things and going to the club is my way of spending time with my mates. I mean, surely people do realise that people such as myself have a social life, right? But don’t get me wrong when I’m out I can’t forget who I am and the fact I’m in the public eye, so I’ve always gotta make sure I don’t go and do something stupid, it only takes a few minutes for my actions to be all over the newspapers and bombarded by the press. I’m sure other artists can relate. But apart from that, I enjoy dancing and going fishing with my dad. That’s all I do really.

Fishing? I would have never thought it!
I’m full of surprises my love, Ha-ha.

Cool, I’ve been meaning to ask, what was it like for you as a child? Briefly.
Life was quite hard for me as a child. But there were good times also. I’m the eldest of three children, I have two younger brothers. We lived with my mum and my dad in a small flat in South East London. Apart from having hardly any space to breathe in such a small apartment, at that time life for me was great. It was fun, I was very ambitious, a very positive thinker and sang all the time!

Did people notice you had this huge talent to sing? Did anyone think you would make it this far?
Well yeah, everywhere I went I use to sing. I just loved it, and my family always had faith in me that my talent would take me far.
Name me three artists who have inspired you the most and why?
First on my list is Whitney Houston. She has an amazing voice and I’m sure despite her flaws she is an inspiration to many women. Next on my list is Michael Jackson! I Think as well as a good singer he is a fantastic entertainer. That is what I want to be, someone who really entertains their fans and brings something different to the stage, he really is the king of pop, but lastly someone more up my street and currently in the eye of the media, Beyonce! I think she is a great role model for many females out there, those of her own age and those who are much younger. I feel that Beyonce talks to her fans through her music and sends messages in which you’re able to interpret in your own way. I love her positivity and her energy, I think she is great!

Favourite colour?
Red. Very passionate colour

Favourite Food?
Spaghetti Bolognese!

The thing you’re scared of the most?
Spiders! Ergh.

One thing you want to achieve before you die?
There’s so many, it’s hard to only pick one!

Ha-ha! Well El, it’s been so nice having you in with us today. Hope you have a safe journey back and again, thanks for coming in!
Thanks for having me! Laters!

Front Cover, Final Production

Double Page Spread, Final Production

Contents Page, Final Production

Target Audience

My target audience for my music magazine is those interested in URBAN music.
My aim is to attract those who would enjoy reading about the genre but also those who may not consider Urban music to be there favourite genre but my find the magazine quite interesting to read.
My target audience would be both male and female audiences therefore my magazine had to be appealing to both genders. The magazine will be published for those of 16-24 years of age as the type of Urban music included within the music magazine will be up to date artists and those who are currently in the eye of the media and successful well known selling artists. Those who like old school hip hop and R&B music probably wouldn't find the magazine interesting or appealing as the music magazine is aimed for more of a younger audience although some may also find it interesting.

As the audience that I am trying to target is of a young age, they need something striking to stand out and appeal to them, therefore a boring, dull magazine would not be in the slightest of their interest as it would not immediately attract their attention. Obviously the target audience has a relation to the genre of the magazine; it is most likely that someone who mostly listens to rock or indie music is least likely to pick up an Urban magazine as it wouldn't consist of the artists that they enjoy listening and knowing about, but the question was, how exactly would my magazine attract its target audience? Now this may seem like a very straight forward question to ask as many could argue that if it consists of artists who produce this type of genre then this is how it appeals to the audience, but not necessarily. There are other elements of a magazine which will target its aimed audience. When looking at different magazines I noticed that the front cover was one of the main pages of the magazine which is responsible for targeting the audience. For one, the main image will target its audience if the image is bold and looks like someone of that genre, for example VIBE magazine having Chris Brown as a main image of the front cover clearly illustrates that the magazine will reflect on the genre that the artist performs, in this case R&B music. The cover lines also have a huge impact on addressing the audience. Bold, large cover lines that are attention seeking and stand out are an effective way of targeting the audience as its one of the main aspects of the front cover that stands out to the reader, but also the title can have a huge impact on targeting the audience as well. I have named my music magazine 'URBAN' which I think definitely reflects the genre of my magazine as it is precise, straight forward and straight to the point.This now leads us to the actual content of the magazine and how this will reflect targeting the audience. If a person is able to flick quickly through a magazine and instantly establish its genre, then this is a good sign to targeting the audience. Someone who is interested in Hip Hop and R&B music should be able to just have a look inside my magazine and should indeed be attracted to it. When creating my magazine this was the aim I set out to achieve.

Research, Genre Of Magazine

The genre that I chose for my magazine is Hip Hop and R&B. The reason behind this is because I myself am a fan of Hip Hop and R&B Music.
I decided to try and go for a different genre out of my comfort zone, but realised that I knew more about the art of Urban music rather than music genre's such as Rock and heavy metal. The aim that I set out to achieve was an URBAN magazine that both genders could read and enjoy, therefore I had to research on my chosen genre and how I could create a magazine good enough for male and female audiences.

I used search engines such as google to gather information on what hip hop and R&B music is all about. I found out that under hip hop music the genre is split up into many different segments. Firstly we have New school hip hop. New school hip hop originated in 1983-84 with the early records from Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J. As with the hip hop preceding it, the new school came predominately from New York City and included influences by rock music. It was notable for taunts and boasts about rapping, and socio-political commentary, both delivered in an aggressive, self-assertive style. In image as in songs its artists projected a tough, cool, street b-boy attitude. 

Gangsta rap and west coast hip hop is also another element which lays beneath the Urban category. Gangsta rap is a sub genre of hip hop that reflects the violent lifestyles of inner-city American black youths.The genre was established in the mid 1980s by rappers such as Schoolly D and Ice T, and was popularised in the later part of the 1980s by groups like N.W.A. Ice-T released "6 in the Mornin'", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song, in 1986. After the national attention that Ice-T and N.W.A created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative sub genre of hip hop. The subject matter inherent in gangsta rap has caused a great deal of controversy. Criticism has come from both left wing and right wing commentators, and religious leaders. Gangsta rappers often defend themselves by saying that they are describing the reality of inner-city life, and that they are only adopting a character, like an actor playing a role, which behaves in ways that they may not necessarily endorse.

World Hip Hop is basically hip hop music which has spread all around the country from Haiti which was established in the late 1980's all the way to Bosnian Hip Hop. My Magazine is going to mainly be on Urban Hip Hop music based around the UK and USA. New York City experienced a heavy Jamaican hip hop influence during the 1990s. This influence was brought on by cultural shifts particularly because of the heightened immigration of Jamaicans to New York City and the American-born Jamaican youth who were coming of age during the 1990s. In Europe, Africa, and Asia, hip hop began to move from the underground to mainstream audiences. In Europe, hip hop was the domain of both ethnic nationals and immigrants. British hip hop, for example, became a genre of its own and spawned many artists such as Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, The Streets and many more. This is more of the type of music and artists which would be included in my music magazine.

http://www.hiphopmusicdotcom.com/

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my music magazine would simply be any male or female person aged from about 16-24 years old who are interested in Hip Hop and R&B music. The target audience of my magazine would be most likely to shop in places such as JD sports where they sell alot of tracsuits and trainers as many artists of Hip Hop and R&B music have a tendancy to wear alot of trainers and tracsuits such as Adidas (mostly male) and items which are branded costing alot of money as many artists of this genre tend to wear this sort of stuff. Often an artist may have their own clothing line or sell a specific item therefore those who enjoy urban music will often buy their products. Female audiences would tend to shop in places such as H&M or New Look which is are two very similar stores known to sell quite casual fashionable clothing but also as well as men would buy branded clothes similar to what they see celebraties wear. This compairs to a magazine such as Kerrang which is more of a rock and heavy metal magazine which the audience would most likely shop in stores such as Punky Fish as the clothing sold there is quite funky and consists of alot of dark colours which we mostly see rock stars wear.

According to uk tribes, Urban fashion and music extends into mainstream publishing and TV, but the core tribe members are most influenced by what they see around them in their urban environments, in clubs and on social networks such as  YouTube, Myspace and Facebook which are the most effective sources of social networks. The type of audience that my magazine is aimed to attracts splits into two main different types of social groups who are quite similar to eachother. These are called the Trackies and Blinders. Trackies are enthusiasts who enjoy consuming R&B and Hip Hop music. Their hooded tops are intimidating but this is the style and the way in which they dress. Blingers are preoccupied with US music and icons, and spend big on label fashion which may be seen worn similarly by other urban artists and is exactly what my music magazine consists of.

http://uktribes.com/urban

Below I have used https://bubbl.us/ to illustrate the types of clothing, Tv programmes, music etc. that the audience of my magazine would be interested in. 

 

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The magazine industry consists of three big companies "Bauer Consumer Media", "IPC Media" and "Channelfly Enterprises" which are apparently currently dominating the media industry according to statistics from "ABC". 

Here are ABC's statistics showing the figures in the year 2011:

• The Fly free ( Channelfly Enterprises Ltd ) : 100,574 ; -0.4%
• Mojo ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 87,555 ; -7.5%
• Q ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 77,522 ; -12.1%
• Classic Rock ( Future Publishing Ltd ) : 62,354 ; -7.9%
• Uncut ( IPC Media Ltd ) : 62,305 ; -14.2%
• The Stool Pigeon free ( Junko Partners Publishing ) : 53,676 ; N/A
• Properganda free ( Proper Music Distribution ) : 46,542 ; N/A
• Kerrang! ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 42,077 ; -2.1%
• DIY Magazine free ( RWD Creative Media Limited ) : 36,801 ; N/A
• Metal Hammer ( Future Publishing Ltd ) : 35,259 ; -15.7%
• New Musical Express ( IPC Media Ltd ) : 27,650 ; -14.0%
• Hot Press ( Osnovina Ltd ) : 17,688 ; -0.2%

Bellow I have used Prezi to present the media institution that is likely to distribute my music magazine and reasons why.

Evaluation Question 2

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

More PowerPoint presentations from shanike